Sestito earned 27 penalty minutes in one second of action for mugging Nolan in the first period of Monday’s powder keg matchup against the Kings. The beat down was sparked by a big hit from Nolan on Canucks captain Henrik Sedin earlier in the game.

On Wednesday, Tortorella said he’d be happy to see Sestito continue to play “the right way."

“I didn’t care about the penalties,” Tortorella told TEAM 1040. “I even told the team, I don’t care about the penalties. Because if you’re trying to do things the right way ... you’ll probably end up getting some penalties.”

Tortorella then took aim at Nolan, who backed out of Sestito’s challenge despite being fed fist after fist during the brief donnybrook.

“Something has to happen there, too, where this instigator rule and the turtling that goes on in our game, which is just so embarrassing,” Tortorella said.

“If Tommy Sestito did that again, I would applaud him. It was the right thing to do. I just think the game has lost a little bit of its honesty and its honour as we’ve gone through here. Quite honestly, a lot of it is because of the way the rulebook is written.”